World roundup: February 10 2025

Stories from Israel-Palestine, South Africa, Ecuador, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

February 10, 1258: The Mongols sack Baghdad and topple the Abbasid Caliphate. In the aftermath of the siege Mongol warriors massacred tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Baghdad residents and destroyed much of the city including the fabled House of Wisdom, a repository of scholarly manuscripts whose loss was probably incalculable. Although Baghdad regained some of its importance under the Mongols it never returned to the heights it had enjoyed prior to this event, and the effective end of the caliphate marked a huge shift for the Islamic world writ large.

The Mongols besieging Baghdad, from a manuscript of historian Rashid al-Din Fazlullah Hamdani's 14th century Compendium of Chronicles (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

February 10, 1763: Representatives from France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, one of several diplomatic agreements ending the 1756-1763 Seven Years’ War. Reflecting the overall victory of the British-Prussian alliance, the treaty saw France cede considerable territory to Britain in North America (where the conflict was known as the French and Indian War). This included Canada and the eastern part of the Louisiana Territory (everything east of the Mississippi River). Ironically the treaty itself damaged Britain’s relationship with Prussia, as Prussian ruler Frederick II (“the Great”) was forced to make a separate peace deal in the Treaty of Hubertusburg and was angered by Britain’s decision to go it alone at Paris.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

Syrian authorities are accusing Hezbollah of supporting “smuggling gangs on the Lebanese border” after reports of clashes between those gangs and Syrian security forces in recent days. Although the Lebanese army said over the weekend that it had “responded” to cross-border fire related to those clashes, Syrian officials are denying that their forces have fired into Lebanon. They do say that they’ve seized drugs, weapons, and equipment for counterfeiting currency.